


A Conditional Blessing

by china_shop



Category: White Collar
Genre: F/M, Fic, Humor, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-21
Updated: 2011-05-21
Packaged: 2017-10-19 16:34:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,509
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/202921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/china_shop/pseuds/china_shop
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Naturally I'm concerned that you might be toying with his affections as part of your federal brain-washing program."</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Conditional Blessing

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mergatrude](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mergatrude/gifts).



> Thanks to Dragonfly for beta.

Mozzie was firmly of the opinion that friendships thrived best when people respected each other's choices and let them make their own mistakes. One was free to issue warnings and proclaim dire predictions, of course—a liberty of which Mozzie took frequent and full advantage—but that was as far as interventionism should ever go. So it was with a panoply of qualms and reservations that he found himself composing a sonnet to Mrs. Suit. The sonnet contained a relatively simple code which, when deciphered, invited her to meet him at the Cha-An Tea House on East 9th Street that Friday at 2.14pm.

Mozzie's qualms and reservations were distracting, which was his only excuse for not guessing that sending El a code would inevitably attract her husband's attention and, worse, attendance.

"Sorry," she said with a smile, as they joined him at the corner table he'd chosen. "Peter can never resist a puzzle, and he cracked the code before I did." She didn't add that Mr. FBI didn't trust Mozzie and was suspicious of such a discreetly arranged meeting, but Mozzie was used to reading between the lines.

He squared his shoulders and eyed the Suit. "I suppose it's all right, so long as you weren't followed. Were you?"

"Followed by whom?" asked Peter, glancing with a resigned lack of enthusiasm at the tea menu.

"Who do you think?" Mozzie closed his eyes to keep from rolling them, then shook his head at El, who put her hand on Peter's arm.

"Where's Neal?" she interpreted.

"Surveillance van with Jones and Diana," said Peter, apparently still two steps behind. "I'm supposed to be on a coffee run, since the code in the poem said 'Top Secret'." He squinted at Mozzie. "Why was that exactly?"

"Because Mozzie wants to talk to us in private," said El. "Don't you?"

"For some value of 'us'," Mozzie agreed, tilting his head in tribute to her insight. The matter would have been infinitely easier to broach to El on her own, but he was committed to the course of action now, and he'd make the best of the Suit's presence. It involved him too, after all.

A waiter came and took their drinks orders—El ordered for Peter and herself—and El and Mozzie made chit-chat until the drinks arrived. Then Peter sighed impatiently. "As much as I appreciate the break from the van, I'm sure you didn't summon us here for a tea party."

"You're right," said Mozzie, arranging his teapot and cup in front of him. When he had his quadrant of the table set to his satisfaction, he looked up and met El's eye. "I know about you and Neal. No—" He held up his hands to forestall any questions. "—he hasn't said anything, but there are signs. Disturbing signs. So, loathe as I am to interfere, I need to know your intentions."

Peter's jaw literally dropped, and even El seemed taken aback. Before either of them could respond, Mozzie held up his hand.

"Oh, and I beg you, if there are details, please gloss over them. I have a delicate constitution." He adjusted his glasses. "No offence."

"No offence?" muttered Peter, looking torn between embarrassment and outrage.

El, on the other hand, seemed to have recovered her poise. She quirked a delicate eyebrow. "Are you really sure this is any of your concern?"

"Until last week, I would have said the less I knew the better," said Mozzie frankly. "As long as there's no outright abuse of power going on—" He eyed Peter, who pressed his lips together and said nothing. "—then each to their own. But it's become more complicated. Neal's changing."

"Changing how?" asked Peter at once, folding his arms on the table. He hunched forward and stared intently at Mozzie.

Refusing to be hurried, Mozzie took a sip of jasmine tea and replaced his cup in its saucer. Then he looked at them gravely. "He's buying things."

"What kind of things?" asked El, at the same time as Peter said, "What things?"

"That's not the point," said Mozzie. "The operative word is 'buying'. Retail. He has receipts! And he's burning bridges when it comes to former contacts."

"Oh." El went pink, and the corner of her mouth twitched.

The Suit was slower on the uptake. "So?"

Honestly, sometimes Peter Burke was like a child, a chilling example of how subservience to the law could blind you to the important nuances of life. Mozzie liked him well enough, for a Fed, and from observing their interactions, he could almost understand what Neal saw in him, but the man certainly had his limitations.

"So," Mozzie told him, "that's a strong indicator of a change in—outlook. Priorities. It's possible that your misguided attempts to reform him are actually starting to succeed. So naturally I'm concerned that you might be toying with his affections as part of your federal brain-washing program." Mozzie shook his head. "I don't need to tell you how susceptible he is when it comes to matters of the heart. I want to be sure that you really do care about him, and you won't drop him like a hot potato once he's been irredeemably indoctrinated and/or lost his novelty value."

"We won't." El scanned their immediate vicinity to make sure no one was listening, and then lowered her voice anyway. "It's not a government-sponsored seduction, Mozzie, I promise, and we've made it very clear that it's up to him, whatever happens. Though it certainly makes things simpler if he's starting to—"

"This isn't any of your business," interrupted Peter, glaring at Mozzie, who refused to back down. Neal had long since explained that an embarrassed or guilty Peter was inclined to lash out; ergo his reproof could be an indicator of unprincipled behavior.

"I'm making it my business." Mozzie eyed them both sternly. "I have connections. If you hurt him—"

"Wait," said Peter, sounding dumbfounded, "you're giving _us_ the 'if you hurt him' speech? You!"

"Yes, me." Mozzie sat up straighter and met his gaze head on. "And I mean it."

Peter's eyes narrowed and his jaw clenched, and Mozzie wondered if he was about to be arrested—and fingerprinted—for the first time in his life, his details inextricably committed to the system. It was a risk he'd been prepared to take for Neal's sake, but that didn't mean he was thrilled at the prospect. But before Peter could retort, El waved her hand in the air between them, disrupting the intensity of their glare-off.

"Guys!" She dropped her hand and squeezed Peter's arm, while looking to Mozzie. She was still slightly flushed, and she turned her cup on its saucer meditatively, before looking up again. "Nothing's really agreed yet, between us and—and Neal. But we'll do our best by him, I promise. Message received."

Mozzie raised his eyebrows at Peter who, after a moment, gave him a grudging nod of agreement, and then a rueful smile. "I can't say I wouldn't be doing the same, if our positions were reversed."

"A little less sonnet, a little more threat of legal repercussions?" said Mozzie, picking up his teacup. "So you understand, then. Given Neal and my long and formerly fruitful association, I consider him practically family."

"You're a good friend to him, Mozzie." El clinked her teacup against his.

Surprisingly, Peter did likewise, turning it into a toast. "To your long and formerly fruitful association."

He put too much emphasis on the 'formerly', but Mozzie was feeling magnanimous, relieved to have got the awkwardness out of the way. "And to your new—association. You have my conditional blessing."

"For which we're very grateful," said El.

Peter got to his feet. "And now I have to be getting back to the grindstone." He bent to kiss his wife, and then loomed over Mozzie, blocking out the light. Mozzie quashed a premonition of doom—he had those a dozen times a day, and they rarely came true—and blinked when he realized Peter was holding out his hand.

It wasn't a gesture Mozzie would ever have initiated, but it was apropos. There was a protocol for these things after all. So he stood up and formally shook Peter's hand. "Not a word to Neal," he said.

And then Special Agent Peter Burke, the Suit, the G-man, the bane of Mozzie's existence for some years in the past and subsequently much resented for first incarcerating Neal and then electronically shackling him—that self-same Peter released Mozzie from a cordial handshake and _winked_ at him. "Your secret's safe with us."

He left, and Mozzie sat down and pressed his hands flat on the wooden tabletop, waiting for the natural forces of the universe to re-exert themselves. When he was reasonably sure they had, he looked at El, whose smile had blossomed into a small mischievous grin.

"So," she said, leaning forward, her hands cradling her teacup, her eyes dancing. "Is there any way I can persuade you to tell me what it is that Neal's been buying?"


End file.
